The present invention relates to a new and distinct variety of Fuchsia grown for use as an ornamental for container, hanging basket and the landscape. The new cultivar is known botanically as Fuchsia×hybrida and will be referred to hereinafter by the cultivar name ‘Rose Quartet’.
The new cultivar ‘Rose Quartet’ is a chance hybrid which was discovered by the inventor as individual whole plant within a population of unnamed and unreleased hybrid plants which resulted from a formal breeding program conducted by the inventor in a cultivated area of Cheshire, England. The purpose of the breeding program was to create new showy Fuchsia that exhibit reliable commercial performance, compact bushy growth habit, as well as new and unique flowers. The program was established in 1997. Induced multiple open cross-pollinations of up to 200 per year have occurred since that time, between individual plant crops of up to forty individual commercial hybrids of Fuchsia, and involving 2-3 million individual plants.
Seed was collected from numerous crosses, and sown, in order to observe the resulting seedlings. In 2000 the inventor selected ‘Rose Quartet’, from the seedlings, based on its unique flower traits. The exact parents are unknown. The female parent plant is an individual unnamed Fuchsia in an individual crop of Fuchsia×hybrida. The male parent plant is an individual unnamed Fuchsia in an individual crop of Fuchsia×hybrida. There are no close comparison plants known to the inventor. The new variety ‘Rose Quartet’ is an ornamental plant characterized by compact mounding habit, yellow-green leaves, gray-red stems, and pink flowers with a quartered corolla and re-flexed sepals.
‘Rose Quartet’ was first asexually propagated, in June 2000, by the inventor in a cultivated area of Cheshire, England. The method of propagation used was softwood cuttings. The characteristics of the new Fuchsia cultivar named ‘Rose Quartet’ have been determined stable and are reproduced true to type in successive generations.